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I need a full timeline of creativity research (focusing on cognitive psychology but not limited to), starting from Guilford's presidential address (1950) to present.
Hello! Thanks for your question about the timeline of creativity research. The short answer is that the direction this field of research has taken has been actively directed by the current social zeitgeist of each individual era. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY:
Sources provided include websites that outline the history of creative research in order to provide a detailed timeline. The websites include scholar names, titles, theories and dates and were taken from academic databases, corporate websites, government reports/databases, trusted media sites and industry reports.
1950s: Guilford receives funding from the Office of Naval Research to study the abilities of high level personnel and is disappointed by the inability of standardized intelligence tests to measure their creative ability. The focus of these studies was on the correlation between intelligence and creativity. It was commonly believed that only the very intelligent would also possess any type of creativity. In 1957 when the Soviets released Sputnik, it brought the American educational system under scrutiny from politicians and scientists who were utterly appalled that we had not accomplished this feat first. By 1959 Guilford had published 'The Three Faces of Intellect' stating what he felt were the flaws in intelligence tests. Doing so, he provided a new outline for studying creativity, one that was separated from intelligence. Research methodologies were initially rough. Research methods in the physical sciences involve things like cutting, weighing, and counting. To have effective methods of research in the social sciences, different qualitative research methods would have to be developed.
1960: Maslow and Rogers brought about the importance of self-actualization (the achievement of one's full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world) as something of which creativity was a byproduct. Celeste Rhodes claims creative deficiencies exist where personal needs are not met. The idea that anyone, not just intellectuals, could be creative begins to emerge. In 1967 Guilford publishes his 'Structure of Intellect'. This becomes one of the most well-known models of intellect and the first to include creativity in its structure. From these theories spawned the Torrence Tests for Creative Thinking (TTCT) which are still used in studies today. These models of what Guilford called "divergent thinking" (you and I would refer to them as "outside the box") focus on the process of creativity within the individual.
1970s: Namely due to the lack of unifying definitions and the amount of subjectivity that was inherent in the tests, criticism of the psychological research of creativity was widespread when the research did not produce what was promised, which was a test that could predict which of the four types of creative an individual would be.
1. Deliberate Cognitive: Arises from working for extended periods of time in your specialized area
2. Deliberate Emotional: The ah-ha moment
3. Spontaneous Cognitive: Conscious brain stops working on a problem letting the unconscious brain stretch its legs
4. Spontaneous Emotional: Produced in the brain by the amygdala, which is where the emotions are processed. Described mostly by artists and musicians.
1980s: There is a shift in the study of creativity influenced by the corporatization of America. Studies are now focusing on how to promote creativity within a corporate environment by zeroing in on classroom teachers as a key influence on the creative aptitude of children, who would one day be employees of these corporations. Research also focused on situational influences in creativity.
1990: This decade saw the fastest advances in the fields of science and technology. Creativity research started to focus on the products of the creative process, instead of on the process itself. Corporate employees were being pressured more and more to come up with new, creative products, creative advertising, and creative solutions, which fueled and directed this new view on the research. Much of the educational research in the first half of the 90s had to do with meta cognition, which simply means that you are aware of your own thought process (or "thinking about thinking"). It was widely believed that if you became aware of your own cognitive process that your creativity would be greater. The American Psychological Association guidelines for education redesign and reform are even written to now include meta cognition, along with motivational, affective, developmental, social, and individual differences.
2000s: Promoting creativity through once again reforming education seems to many like a viable way to come up with solutions to the various ills of modern society. There is a call for more empirical research to be done to be able to best determine which methods and practices will best foster creativity. It seems, however, that since a look at the creativity research database of the Education Resources Information Center database produced 10,061 results, and a similar search of the Simon Fraser University library catalog produced 293,542 results "the abundance of information is already available, perhaps there is enough research, but the answers provided are not what experts want to hear: that creativity might not be the solution to our current problems."
Even in our current decade one of the main problems appears to be the lack of a single, unifying definition of exactly what "creativity" means. A recent study by English computational scientist Anna Jordanous analyzed 90 creativity-related papers over six decades, searching for recurring terms used across different academic fields to describe the human creative processes. Narrowing the overlapping frameworks and definitions down, she still arrived at 14 separate answers. Researchers Kahl, Hermes da Fonseca, and Witte found that the words 'creativity' and 'innovation' tend be used interchangeably. He also noted that research on individuals was conducted almost three times as much as any research on groups.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, the field of research creativity is largely guided by its current social climate, which is always changing. This outside factor has led creative researches down many pathways and through vast amounts of research methods, all of which are still growing and evolving today. Thanks for using Wonder! Please let us know if we can help with anything else.